Video production workflow can be defined as a culmination of planning, shooting, editing, and delivering a video project. It begins with pre-production, proceeds to production, post-production, and results in the output video for delivery.
Pre-production typically involves the creative process of scriptwriting and storyboarding, while production tasks involve the actual making of the video, including filming. If you are a digital marketer, you might be working with a video creator to create digital videos rather than filming them.
It is during post-production, that is, during editing that the raw video is trimmed, polished, and rendered to be ready for distribution. Distribution is taking the final product to the target audience through designated channels.
For example, a content creator will use YouTube videos or Instagram reels to publish their video, while a movie-production company will use an offline network of theaters or an OTT platform to deliver content.
All said, the video production workflow is akin to a complicated machine made up of several moving parts each with their own varying challenges. Optimizing these moving parts or components is necessary to maximize RoI for the video.
Further, a well-defined video production facilitates collaboration and communication among the stakeholders, avoids errors and delays, and helps create the final output in the shortest time span possible.
In the sections below, we will delve into the comprehensive process of video production, breaking it down into four key stages:
- Pre-production,
- Production,
- Post-production, and
- Delivery.
From conceiving the initial concept to delivering the final video to the audience, each stage plays a crucial role in bringing a video project to life. As we explore these stages, we will examine the unique tasks and considerations involved in each phase, providing insights into the intricate and collaborative nature of successful video production workflows.
Whether you're a seasoned professional or an amateur filmmaker or even somebody who uses videos for business purposes, understanding these stages is crucial to crafting compelling and impactful visual content.
Let's start with the pre-production stage, which is the foundation of any successful video project.
Pre-production phase: The first step of video production
Pre-production is the stage where you prepare everything you need for the video production. It is the most important stage because it determines your video project's quality, budget, and timeline.
This stage involves meticulous planning and coordination, encompassing tasks such as video planning and storyboarding, scriptwriting and revisions, casting and location scouting, digital asset management and organization, and more.
1. Video planning and storyboarding
You need to define your video goal, target audience, message, and tone. Ocne the basics are in place, a visual outline of the video has to be created in the form of a storyboard, a shot list, or a mood board to guide the video production process.
2. Scriptwriting and revisions
The visual outline needs to be bolstered with a clear and engaging script. The script’s voice and tone must match your video goal and the audience it is catering to. Further, you may want to revise and refine the script by sharing it with the team or clients and collecting their feedback.
3. Casting and location scouting
If you are making a feature film involving real people as actors, you need to find and hire the best actors, crew, and equipment for your video project.
On the other hand, if you are making a digital video or animated video, you will have to collect reference images and videos for building the storyboard. These could have various types like royalty-free assets, logo files, AI or PSD files, etc. which needs to be carefully organized and stored.
4. Asset management and organization
The whole activity of video production is going to generate a lot of digital assets, including images, video clips, logos, fonts, and much more. You need to store and manage all digital assets in an organized fashion for easy retrieval and safe storage. The use of tags, labels, categories can make it easy to search and find your assets when needed.
The pre-production stage is also a stage where a lot of digital mockups and assets relating to the video production will be collected for reference and both for production. Implementing a Digital Asset Management (DAM) system is paramount in optimizing the pre-production phase, because poor digital asset management can leave assets astray delaying the production or even driving costs significantly.
In the pre-production phase, a DAM system serves as a centralized storage hub for organizing, storing, and retrieving digital assets. It also streamlines the team’s collaborative efforts by bringing them together on a common platform.
Production phase: From storyboard to first shot
The production phase is the stage where the planned vision comes to life. You shoot the first scenes of the video or render them in a digital environment. It is the most exciting and challenging stage because it requires a lot of coordination, creativity, and technical skills.
Production involves various tasks such as:
Creating video footage
For ease of discussion, we are going to call it creating video footage. Today, video can be created the old way using a camera or even digitally rendered using animation software. The latter is the most preferred choice of marketers and the businesses they serve.
To create any video, follow your storyboard and shot list. If you are following the old way of shooting video, you might also want to specify the best camera angles, subject movements, and techniques to capture your video content the right way.
Monitoring and controlling lighting, sound, and other technical aspects
Making a single frame in a video is also a collaborative effort. There are so many technical aspects to be monitored and controlled like lighting, sound, and other technical aspects such as color, exposure, focus, and white balance.
Also, you have to use the appropriate equipment, such as microphones, lights, reflectors, and filters, which will have to be used to make the specific type of video. For example, documentaries and animated videos require a whole different set of equipment.
Post-production preparation
Production is only half the battle. The remaining battle happens when the raw footage is moved to processing. Today, almost all of video post-production activity has taken the digital route.
This requires that irrespective of how you shoot the video; you need to backup and transfer your video footage to your computer or cloud storage. Storing video files on the cloud is the first step. One must then organize and label the video files and folders using the right file nomenclature, tags, etc., so that they are stored in an orderly fashion and can be retrieved quickly when required.
Post-production: where the video is reborn
Post-production is the stage where you edit and polish your video footage and add the finishing touches to your video project. It is the most creative and technical stage because it requires a lot of skill, patience, and attention to detail. In a way, it is post-production that chisels away the unnecessary parts of your video, refines it, and makes it suitable for mass consumption.
Post-production activities are mainly made up of:
Video editing and revisions
Raw footage is never ready for distribution. You need to cut, trim, and arrange your video clips and create a smooth and coherent flow for your story. Further, if you have plans to publish the video on social media channels, you should also consider transforming the video dimensions, format, and file size to meet platform-wise requirements.
Color enhancement and manipulation
Even if you use a high-end camera, it is necessary to do some color correction and grading to get the color, contrast, brightness, and saturation in the right ratio. There could be scenarios when you also need to apply different color schemes and styles to your video, and match the color of different shots and scenes.
Audio editing and mixing
No video is complete without supporting audio. One of the important tasks in post-production is to edit and improve the sound quality of your video footage, and remove any unwanted noise, distortion, or echo. This is also the stage where dialogue, music, and sound effects are added to the video to create a clear and immersive sound experience for your video.
Effects and animation
Raw video footage often needs to be enhanced with the help of effects and animation. Most marketing videos require video overlays and watermarks to make them suitable for promotion. This part of adding effects and animation takes place in the post-production phase.
Delivery: Distributing the video to your target audience
Delivery is the stage where you optimize and distribute your video project to your target audience and platform. It is the final and most rewarding stage because it allows you to showcase your video project and measure its performance and impact. Delivery involves various tasks such as:
Video uploading
Video uploading is the stage where the edited final version of the video is uploaded to the cloud or storage system for delivery. Uploading one or more videos on a daily basis is a manageable tasks, however, uploading several videos regularly demands manual effort and more bandwidth. There are video APIs that simplify the task of uploading videos at scale to cloud and also manage them effortlessly.
Video optimization and transcoding
After all the editing and applying effects and animations, your video file size could bloat unexpectedly. A bloated video file is not compatible for online streaming. You have to optimize and compress your video file, and reduce its size and bandwidth all without compromising its quality and resolution. This process of reducing the video file size and making it suitable for uploading and delivering is referred to as optimization.
Further, you also have to transcode the video file, meaning it has to be converted into an appropriate file format that is compatible with the destination channel/platform. There are video transcoding APIs and tools that make this task easier.
Digital video delivery
Videos are no longer delivered using films. They are converted into digital files that can be uploaded to chosen platforms and channels. The most common channels are websites, social media, or an OTT streaming service.
No matter where your video content is getting delivered, your audience should be able to view it without buffering issues. Video buffering usually happens when a heavy video file is being streamed across the internet to a viewer who could be located in a physically distant place. Using a video CDN helps with delivering the video content from the nearest available server to the viewer’s location.
How can a DAM system help across the video production workflow process
From pre-production to delivery, a DAM system can be the backbone of the video production workflow. It brings to the table several capabilities that will allow the video creators, technicians, and the users of the video asset to collaborate and publish the video effortlessly.
A central perk for video collaboration
A DAM system facilitates collaborative planning by providing a centralized platform for teams to share and iterate on video concepts, storyboard images, and related creative assets.
No more duplicates with Version Control
It ensures version control, preventing confusion by keeping track of revisions and iterations of video plans and storyboards. Further, it maintains a comprehensive revision history, preserving the evolution of video and images giving you efficient tracking of all changes, from scratch to screen-ready version.
A safe home for all video assets
A DAM system serves as a centralized repository for various pre-production assets, including images, videos, documents, and graphics. It also ensures accessibility to casting videos, location images, and other assets for all relevant team members involved in decision-making processes.
Easy file tracking with Metadata Management
Efficient metadata tagging in a DAM system allows for quick searches and categorization, reducing the time spent searching for specific assets.
Wondering which would be an ideal DAM system to optimize your video production workflow?
Introducing, ImageKit
ImageKit is a powerful and easy-to-use digital asset management (DAM) system that can optimize your video production workflow. With ImageKit, you can:
✅Upload, store, and manage your videos in one place
You can use native integrations with popular object storage services and web servers, or use ImageKit’s own media library to store your videos securely and conveniently.
✅Optimize and transform your videos in real-time
You can use ImageKit’s automatic video format conversion and quality optimization features to reduce the size and improve the performance of your videos. You can also apply various transformations such as cropping, resizing, rotating, and adding filters to your videos using simple URL parameters.
✅Stream your videos seamlessly across devices and platforms
You can use ImageKit’s adaptive bitrate streaming feature to deliver videos in DASH and HLS protocols without setting up complex video streaming pipelines. You can also load videos natively across browsers and devices using your file’s URL.
✅Deliver your videos faster and better with a global CDN
You can use ImageKit’s AWS Cloudfront powered video CDN to distribute your videos across the world and ensure a smooth and consistent viewing experience for your users.
ImageKit is the ideal DAM system for video creators, editors, and publishers who want to simplify and streamline their video production workflow. With ImageKit, you can focus on creating amazing videos and leave the rest to us.
If you want to try ImageKit for free and see how it can help you optimize your video production workflow, sign up today and get started in minutes.